


Unraveling

by kitsune13tamlin



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender, Voltron: Vehicle Voltron
Genre: AU Verse, F/M, I am easily motivated, I have a hard time with sad endings okay?, belated sequel, he's a bi guy, one person asked for this, sailing the rare pair ship again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-21 05:21:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17037422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitsune13tamlin/pseuds/kitsune13tamlin
Summary: the au follow up sequel to Anywhere You Go.  Lisa may be gone - but she's not as forgotten as she'd intended.  She should have known better anyway.





	1. Chapter 1

He dreams of a voice

_somethings missing_

Sometimes he doesn’t dream it.  He feels it.  Just there, behind his right shoulder.  Something he can’t hear but he can feel.

Sometimes it almost seems to lean forward over his shoulder, when he’s sitting down, look at the screens in front of him with him, right in the middle of battle, when he’s struggling to make sense of things, find the right path through.  A way to keep his team safe.  He feels it then, the voice, the lean.  It never gives him answers - but he always seems to find the answer right after.  There’s a stillness that comes with the feeling of the voice.  A clarity and peace.  A moment of calming.

He pretends he thinks its Black.  That its something in their bond that bleeds through and rests tucked up against his heart inside his chest, snuggled close and tight and protected.  That the feel of a warm bed on a cold rainy day, the thick liquid golden oil of it, the heavy comforting weight in his stomach are just manifestations of their link.

It’s not.  He can pretend but there’s no trace of Black in that voice.

There’s no quiet, leftover, echo of a longing ache in his bond with Black the way there is when he feels the voice, welcome and lonely at the same time.  It lingers, at the back of his senses, as if its always been, always there when he reaches for it and he can’t, even when he tries, remember the first time he felt the voice without sound.  There must have been a start to it but it feels like forever, like the forgotten scent of your own skin.

Shiro loves the voice.  Even if it hurts like a thorn lodged deep in the center muscle of his chest.

For a very long time, he’s content with the voice.  As if he has a constant invisible companion who’s just outside the door or just around the corner.  Only stepped away for a moment.  They’ll be right back.  All he has to do is roll over in the bed and they’ll be right there, sound asleep next to him.

He knows its not sane.  But - its a comfort somewhere in the deepest parts of him and he doesn’t want to give it up.  Not all insanity is dangerous, surely.  If it helps him, even if its not exactly healthy, its still a good thing, isn’t it?  If his mind is making it up, than he must need it.  And - there is so much else insane in his life, flying giant robot lions that form an even bigger robot person in an alien war for instance.  How bad can one tiny little extra insanity that comforts him be?

Until the day he’s standing behind them as both Allura and Keith turn their heads in unison to look at something and there’s a flash over his mind of _white hair black hair._ His heart trips and goes silent in his chest as if he’s caught in a moment of endless importance and something tangled and matted seems to slide through his palms, even on the hand that has no feeling anymore.

‘ _t’was brillig_ ’ the voice whispers.

And then:

‘ _and all that I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by_ ’

“…but I have promises to keep.”

It spills out of his mouth and, to him, it sounds like someone else’s voice.  Someone younger, someone hurt.  Someone that dreams about stars.  Keith looks at him curiously but Shiro shakes his head.

The thorn in his chest hurts.  As if its wiggling closer to his heart.  Threatening.

He wakes up that night out of a dark sleep and sits straight up, already pushing the blanket aside and getting to his feet where he’s fallen asleep sitting down against the wall in his bedroom.

‘ _Ro!_ ’

He’d heard the voice call him.

Except there’s no one in the room.  And as he digs the heels of his hands into his closed eyes and sags back down, he knows no one was.  He’s alone.  

He’s still alone.

But they linger, the voice’s owner.  Just outside his door.  Just around the corner.  They’ll be right back.  Just… just a heartbeat away from returning…

In the dark, he lifts his head.  Answers, very low and very soft, no idea why but needing to the way he needs to blink or breathe or swallow:

“I miss you too.”


	2. Chapter 2

_Oh, that’s far, said Big Nutbrown Hare._

He wakes up with the words in his head and a warmth in his chest.

_That is very, very far._

It follows him through his early morning work out and through breakfast as well, like the flavor of cinnamon through a drink, the words whispering and familiar and warming.

  _Oh.  Said Big Nutbrown Hare._  
  
So much of his mind is fragments and shards.  Shiro's used to broken pieces drifting to the surface of it, especially after he’s been sleeping, that don’t fit anywhere.  Sometimes he worries at them, sharp unfamiliar sides and fragile edges, trying to make them fit somewhere, anywhere.  Sometimes they're so much nonsense, mental noise he can’t place or even put a definition to.  Sometimes they make his stomach lurch, like the first warning shudder in a ship about to break apart, making his insides roll and clench and he tries to forget them again as quickly as he can.  But this one simply drifts, soft and gentle against him, no sharp edges, no sinking feeling.  Just the little fragment of a song or a story that threads its way through the rest of the day, whispering to itself in the back of his mind when things are quiet enough to hear it.   _Oh_ , whispers the soothing voice, low and soft and drowsy, _that is Very, Very Far…._

He falls asleep listening to it, lazily turning it about inside his mind.   He's sure its part of a story.  There are no forgotten feelings of lyrics, no grasping in the dark for images as if it were a movie.  So it must be a story.  A children’s story.  Except he doesn’t remember it which means it isn’t from _his_ childhood.  He can remember his childhood.  There had been no Nut Brown Hares in it.  No _Very Far_ to be crooned.  But it does croon in the back of his mind now, lulling him until he can sleep, all but an actual voice he can hear near him. Tucked in close.  Whispering drowsy words against his jaw as the stars spin by outside…

 _That is very high, thought Little Nutbrown Hare_ as Shiro wakes up the next morning and he catches at it before he even opens his eyes, holds it up mentally in front of himself and tries to fit it to its other piece.  What is very far?  What is very high?    
  
Why does his heart ache so badly, wanting - needing to remember?  
  
He chews over it during training and the routine intel sorting afterward, mind on what is happening around him but a piece of him stands aside from it all, off where it devotes itself to -

far? high?  If it is a children’s book it has to be something easy.  ‘Far ‘ could be far to grandmother’s house, or far for a whale to swim on a journey but - high?  ‘High’ meant up.  So - clouds?  The sky?  Stars?  Why would a rabbit be talking about height and distance in a children’s story?

 _Oh. That’s far, said Big Nutbrown Hare_ and Shiro forms the words as well, feeling the familiar taste of them on his tongue.  _That is very, very far._   He knows this story.  He knows it well.  Can feel it under his skin, along the edge of his tongue, caught in the curve of his ears, pressed against the beat of his heart.  But - how?  And where is the rest of it?

“Haven’t heard that in a while,” Keith’s voice is somewhere between nostalgic and melancholy and Shiro turns his head to look at him.  He hadn’t realized he’d been reciting it outloud but Keith is looking at him, quiet sadness and hopeful relief on his face in equal mix and Shiro doesn’t understand that.   They're the only ones left in the observation room, both staring at the stars now that the view screens are gone and everyone else has left, both lost in their thoughts - until Shiro had inadvertently shared his.    
  
“You know it?” There's weight to the way he asks, a little fear.  Is it that easy?  Something he’d heard with Keith that he just hasn’t remembered.  That - doesn’t feel right.  Doesn’t fit to the pieces drifting lazy in the darkness of his mind.  Keith shoots him a sharper look, hurt and worry in his eyes now and Shiro recognizes that both of them are for him.

“I know it was just for the two of you but yeah.  Sometimes I’d hear her too.  It was her favorite way to put you to sleep.”

Shiro blinks and something cold and quick, the sensation like the slap of ice water, hits his skin and washes through him.  His stomach clenches and twists and then drops and for a moment he feels sick, skin feverish, heat and cold.  His throat goes tight and he swallows.  It feels like broken glass when he does.

Somewhere in the back of his mind someone is screaming.  

No.  

Two people are screaming in hellish harmony.  Only one of those screams is his.

“She?” croaks out of him and Keith’s eyes go wide - and then apologetic and he looks away, back at the stars.

“Sorry.” His voice is low.  "I - thought it was okay to bring her up.  You haven’t talked about her so neither have I but  - when you quoted the story I thought - you wanted to now.“

In the back of his mind, Shiro feels a hole opening up, wider and wider, threatening to suck him down, pull him into it, swallow him forever.  He instinctively shies away from it, tries to seal it behind a mental wall, tries to hide from it.  Does he - ?  There is so much he doesn’t remember.  And sometimes… sometimes he's almost glad he doesn’t remember.  He knows he’s done awful things, unforgivable things but - if he doesn’t remember them - maybe he can tell himself they weren’t as bad as they could have been. If he can’t remember - he can’t be forced to relive it.  If he can’t remember… maybe there is some kind of half-assed forgiveness.  But if he remembers - if he remembers it all then he is responsible - all over again - for all of it.  And he doesn’t even know how heavy ‘all of it’ is.  Just that he isn’t sure he won’t break under it if he has to carry it a second time.

_Oh.  That’s far, said Big Nutbrown Hare…._

"Tell me,” he forces it out past his tight throat, past the throbbing in the center of his skull.  Past the sharp tang building behind his eyes, making them feel sand coated and dry.  Keith looks at him, hard surprise that melts into a slow horror and then a breaking sadness.  Its in his voice when he softly says:

“Shiro… That was Lisa’s favorite story.  She used to whisper it to you all the time when she was trying to put you to sleep.  Sometimes when we were all crashing together in one of your rooms at the apartment on campus I’d hear her when none of us could sleep.”  There's a slight twitch to Keith’s lips.  "It was Pavlov’s dog for you.  You never made it to the last line before you’d be out hard.  I’m pretty sure she trained you on purpose that way.“

Shiro blinks.  He - doesn’t remember.  But - no.  He remembers.  He _does_.  He remembers what had happened before Kerberos.  Its only the mission onward that's lost to him.   He remembers - and his mind blanks as he reaches backward in it.  Pieces.  He remembers pieces.  Jumps of moments.  Enough to fill in the rest without needing to remember specifically and _that_ is why he hasn’t noticed.  It isn’t as if he’s had time to sit down and sort through his memories.  But -   
  
_Very Very Far_ whispers Big Nutbrown Hare in his ear.

Keith is standing in front of him now, looking up, worry on his face that's stronger and newer than the usual worry.

"Shiro. Don’t you remember?  I thought you’d only forgotten Kerberos.  Lisa was your co-pilot.  She was with you on the mission.”

 _She was your co-pilot._  And suddenly it hits him hard enough that he has to stagger back, has to curl both hands around his head and sink to the floor because something is trying to get out and its prying his skull apart in the process.  Lisa.  Lisa… The name does nothing - except it does _everything_. There's no memory, not a single memory and yet - that comforting weight in his chest, the familiar feeling of someone just around the corner about to walk into the room, the soft presence just before sleep takes him, the murmur of an almost name on his lips when he wakes up.  There's laughter in the back of his mind, something bright and easy and private, and he realizes it isn’t his, has never been his.  The sighs, the good-natured complaints, the encouragement, the - not a word of them but the _feelings_ of them that have come in slow washes or quick rushes, like waves that come and go, that he’s just accepted and found healing and comfort in - not his.  Not all of them.  The sensations are mingled in with his own so closely that he hasn’t noticed a difference, just that sometimes things feel deeper and better and sometimes they feel thin and lonely.  Those haven’t been all his.  Not entirely at least. 

The screams haven’t always been his…

His head comes up and Keith is kneeling next to him, panic on his face for all he's trying to contain it.

“Shiro - Shiro!  I’m sorry.  You never talked about her and I thought that meant she was - that you couldn’t bring yourself to talk about what happened to her.  I didn’t realize you - you really don’t remember?”

All he can do is shake his head.  No.  He doesn’t remember.  There is no face to go with the sounds in his head, no voice to go with the words. But she's still there.  Still there because he can still feel her. A second heartbeat that has been so close to his he hasn’t realized there was even a second part to it.  His co-pilot.  Lisa.  And - more.   She’d been more.  Enough that parts of her had melted into him until they cast shadows.  Long after she was gone.  A bank wall in Hiroshima forever imprinted with a shadow of someone long gone…

Except -  no.  What if she isn’t gone?  He doesn’t remember her but - crew.   She’d been part of his crew.  And he can’t just let her go, any more than he could let Matt or Commander Holt go.  Not until she’s been brought home.  Not until she’s been found.  Why can’t he remember her though?  Had he - seen her die?

Had he been the one to kill her?

“I have to know,” he pushes himself to his feet, suddenly fueled by terror and anger and horror.  Determination.  Because he’s never run from what he's afraid of in his entire life. Because you ran to face the fears, not away from them.  Attack, no retreat.  Keith scrambles to his feet as well, still looking wide eyed and worried.  Shiro shakes his head at him.

“I don’t remember her.  At all.”   _said Big Nutbrown Hair._  "I should.   Which means something’s more wrong than I’d thought.  I need to - “ he hesitates.  Re-calibrates.  Heads for the door with a more sure step.   "I need to get a look at Pidge’s files for the Kerberos mission.   Something’s wrong and I need to fix it.”

Because that was what you did.  When you’ve done something wrong.

When you’ve abandoned your co-pilot and haven’t even been strong enough to remember the moment you chose to abandon her to forgetfulness.

“I’m coming too,” Keith has that stubborn sound in his voice and Shiro knows better than to argue.  In a way, he's glad.  He doesn’t want to face this alone.  Doesn’t want to face whatever horrible thing has stolen his memories of one person in specific from him alone.  Doesn’t want to go into the dark alone.  Doesn’t want to be the only one that can hear her voice without a voice… 

He simply nods, starts walking again, hears Keith’s steps fall in at his shoulder and match him.    
  
Whatever had gone wrong - it had gone _very_ wrong.  And it had stolen something very private and precious away from him.  Had tried to at least.  Because she is still there. Right up against his heartbeat, waiting in the shadows in the back of his brain.  He’s sworn he’d bring Sam and Matt home.   Whatever there is of Lisa to find - he’ll bring that home too.  And the truth of why she is so important someone had taken her away from him in mind as well as in body.  He’ll bring her home.  He’ll bring her back.  To him.

 

_Oh…. sighed the Nut Brown Hare….  
_

 

_that is very  
_

_very  
_

_far…_


	3. Chapter 3

 

Shiro drifts.  Around him there is only the black empty silence of space.  It helps his mind to go still.  Lets his thoughts and his fears and his worries and his concerns slip away.  Space is forever hungry, forever trying to fill the hollow of itself and Shiro lets it have all of him.  Lets himself become as empty as that space.  Slow inhales, long exhales.  Mind slowly tapering away.

He's here to find a ghost.

A ghost he doesn't remember. 

Except he does.

He doesn't remember the sound of her voice, though now he knows it thanks to the files on Katie's computer.

But he knows the way it feels to hear it.  Knows the difference between the way her whisper can creep up his spine and slip coiling and warm through his stomach to the way her yell can have his complete attention, every nerve singing, every sense blown wide open to prepare for whatever her yell was warning for.  He knows the way her voice lifts when she teases. 

Knows the way it changes between when she's talking to other people - and when she's talking to him....

He doesn't remember the way she looks, though he knows it now thanks to Katie's files.

But he knows, has known all along, the way she turns her head halfway, angling an ear to show she's paying attention even when her eyes don't move from what she's doing.  Knows the way her hair sways against her cheeks, her back, knows the way she runs on her toes, knows the slight sway to her walk as she plants every footstep consciously, almost too smooth to notice anymore for a habit from growing up in a low G environment that no amount of Earth gravity and time can quite erase.  Knows the flash and flare of long pale fingers and the complete trust they inspire in him each and every time he sees them.  Competent and unwilling to let him fall.

The feeling when she smiles at him.

He doesn't remember her scent.  The files on the computer don't give him that.

But when he lays in bed late at night sometimes his pillow doesn't smell like him and he always knows that those are the nights he's going to sleep, really sleep, deep and heavy without dreams because his mind feels comfortable and secure.

The files don't tell him how she tastes either.

His mind says he knows, even if he can't remember it.

Drifting now, surrounded by the silence and eternal patience of the stars, safely encased by his lion, he lets all the things he doesn't remember finally float to the surface.  All the things he had thought he was making up, all the things he didn't have a name or a home for that lived inside of him, all the memories without shape - he lets them rise to the surface of his mind.

There's horror there.

Incredible sadness that threatens to crush him into dust and he doesn't even know why. 

There is loneliness and longing and need and an echoing scream inside of him of 'not fair'.  Of 'not you, it should have been me'.

He doesn't know where they come from and it scares him what they might mean but he doesn't hide from them or try to wall them away.  Sam is missing.  Matt is missing.  Shiro can remember them.  But he can't remember his co-pilot, Lisa Kaga of Moon Base Delta, graduating class of '25 and top pick to replace him as pilot to Kerberos until she'd refused to fly under anyone but him instead.  Thanks to the computer files, he'd seen the interview with Sanda, suspected he'd never known that part before.   But the feel of her, the not-memories of her in his mind, aren't surprised.  Can feel the steadiness of her presence, the echo emotion of being able to rely completely and without fear on someone.

He feels the sliver of a need to impress, the suppressed urge to show off for her, in those echoes

He remembers her.

He doesn't remember her at all.

There was only one reason he would lose something so intrinsic to himself so completely.

Someone had taken it away from him.

Someone had taken _her_ away from him.

And he's done letting them keep her.

"Just give me a star to steer her by."

His eyes snap open and he reaches forward to take the control sticks in his hands, fingers curling tight and firm around them.

"Let's go get her, Black."

For a moment there's no response from the lion and Shiro holds himself very still.  Refusing to register what that means.  He doesn't have the kind of connection to Sam or Matt that he thinks his lion could trace.  But he's felt Lisa coiled inside of him long before he even knew who she was.  Surely - if Red can find Keith over the distance of solar systems, Black can do the same for Shiro.  And if Black can do it for Shiro - doesn't it stand to logic that he can do it for any bond inside of Shiro that feels as solid and strong as Lisa's?

It has to.  Because there are no records that Katie can find in the Galra files they do have access to that give any hints about the dark haired missing co-pilot.  Shiro needs this to work.  Because he's not sure what to do if it doesn't.

And yet for a very long heartbeat, frozen in its descent, Black does nothing.  And Shiro feels the crack start, despite himself, through his assurance. 

"Please," its softer and cracks a little as well.  "Black, I don't know why yet - but I need her back and I need her back now.  Please."

The lion stirs around him and he feels it down through their shared bond.  This is not something any lion has ever done before.  Not even Green for Pidge.  Even finding their own paladin is almost impossible, much less a thin thread of someone connected to their paladin.  He is asking Black for more than the lion has ever done and in an area it doesn't know how to do.  And yet - he has asked.  He has put his faith in his lion.  And after all they have been through - all they mean to each other and have come to mean  -

Black cannot refuse him simply because its unknown. 

He feels the tug at the emotions that go with the not-memory of Lisa, feels the lion's careful exploration.  He is asking it to search the entire universe for one life that does not even belong to it -

but there is a bond.  Not between lion and man but between man and woman. Something strange and unusual and tainted by Druid magic, something that shouldn't be there and yet is. 

And so Black throws itself, suddenly, forward into space

following a connection.  Because its paladin has asked it to and it loves its paladin beyond measure.  Shiro shuts his eyes against the damp sting in them as his lion's determination washes over him, as its devotion washes over him, and he gives himself up to the chase through the stars for an elusive memory that's been taken from him.

Time seems to fold in on itself and when Shiro opens his eyes again he can't tell how long they've been traveling or how fast it has been.  He feels hungry, a rarity for him, but its not overwhelming and a moment later he forgets it as he sees what's filled up the view screen in front of him.

It's a Galra cruiser.

For a single second, his hands tighten on the controls and his back snaps ramrod straight as he prepares to take Black into a dive to avoid its guns -

except there's no incoming fire and the cruiser in front of him drifts, dead and empty.

Long dead and empty.

Exposure in space leaves marks and the cruiser in front of him has been abandoned to the elements for a while.  Already, without its shields in place, the solar radiation and wind have been busy scouring its exterior away, bleaching it of its dark colors, muting its sharp lines, chewing away slowly at its gun ports and flight bays.  Other creatures have been here too, both organic and otherwise, doing the slow erasing process that all dead things eventually come to out here.  He leans forward to look closer and sees what must have crippled and eventually killed the great ship.  One of its landing bays is blown out, metal peeled backward to reveal a scorched and devastated interior.  His eyes focus on that hole and for just a moment, a flicker shot of electric through his brain - he remembers.

An explosion, the force of an escape pushing him back in the seat of his shuttle, the screaming sound of metal around him.

The overwhelming empty new feeling of loss deep in the core of his chest....

He's running a scan for signs of life before he's really conscious of it and he already knows its going to come up negative.  But he has to check all the same.

Because she's here.

Lisa is here.

He knows it.  He trusts Black but even more he can feel the memories that aren't memories and they echo loud in their silence when he looks at the cruiser. 

She's here. 

And if she's not alive - if she's not alive, there's not even going to be a body left to find, after all this time exposed to radiation and the solar winds of space.  Yet - he _needs_ to bring her back.  He needs to bring her _home_.

The scan comes back to him, lit up in purple and there's nothing here to find.  Nothing alive at least.  Not even any energy signatures.  He supposes he can do a space walk.  Link in to a terminal and see if there's anything he can download.  If she was here -

if she died here -

There will probably be records.  Something he can sift through over the following months to find her ghost in. 

But he sits numb in his chair instead, hands lax on the lion's controls.  Heart empty and silent.  He's not sure what he expected.  What end he was thinking he would find.  Inside his chest his heart is hollowed and it beats a sound that matches that.

Slow, almost hesitant, Black's bayard port rises next to him, softly blinking its waiting purple light at him.

_More_ , whispers in the back of his mind.  He hasn't used the Black Bayard since the Blazing Sword that had finished off Zarkon and his giant mecha armor.  Black hasn't signaled a need for it since then.  But the port sits in front of him now, silent and solid and growingly insistent.  Wings, the whisper promises.  Give me my wings.  Give _us_ our wings and let us fly together.

Shiro trusts Black.  Black knows Shiro's heart even better than he does.  There's no yell of challenge or struggle this time, but Shiro slots the bayard home in its port, completely committed to whatever it is Black is going to do next.

The interior of the cockpit lights up.

Black tilts its head back and roars.

And then it pounces forward into the yawning opening of the ruined hanger bay of the cruiser and Shiro feels a great something resist and then push aside for them.  The brittle edges and scorched metal of the cruiser disappear and for just a moment - there's black.  Black wisps like the ones the druids use. Like Haggar uses.  Except - this one is laced with amber golden light

and the view outside the cockpit is suddenly something Else.

If, for the rest of his life, Shiro were to try to find a way to explain it visually he would never be able to.  It's a visual that's a literal feeling.  It's like standing sideways on a wall, like a reflection of an angle.  It's - stepping sideways between seconds.  It's a lost crack in realities.  A moment between heartbeats.  His eyes keep trying to unfocus, keep trying to latch onto something outside the view screens of the lion's eyes and failing to find anything familiar enough to catch on.  His hands tighten down on the control handle in one palm, fingers curling even closer around the bayard with the other.  He trusts Black.  More than anything, especially himself, he trusts Black and the lion has brought him here.  Shiro narrows his eyes against the vertigo -

against the huge shadow-shapes he can almost make out at the edges of his vision, moving wrong and out of time, and he focuses.

And there - flicker and gone again, like a falling star against the horizon, he watches a flash of white light go by.

Black roars.

Shiro reacts on a bone deep instinct he can't name or explain and sends Black diving into the Nowhere after that light

They follow it as it falls into darkness.

Its a star, distant and glinting.  Its a comet closer and pulsing.  Its a woman, all white light barely contained in a body, in the view screen of the lion.

Its Lisa, as Black leaps forward to engulf her, sudden in the cabin with him, in his lap, burning as hot and cold as the moon does, forever trapped in space.  He lets go of the control stick with his human hand to wrap that arm around her and -

and he remembers -

Its there in a flash, all at once, overwhelming and he chokes on it, gasps for air as it constricts his lungs it weighs so much, threatens to overwhelm and swallow him whole because its too much, so much, and he can't absorb it all at once -

except she's still slipping, slipping through his arm, past his body, insubstantial, still falling in her own gravity well, no more solid than light itself, melting through his body.  He tightens his arm on her.  He's not going to lose her again.

He will _never_ lose her again.

And Black turns like a dancer, spinning and spiraling downward to keep her anchored in the center of its great body, falling and revolving around her as they all plundge into eternity.  Shiro doesn't take his hand from the bayard.  It seems very, very important not to take his hand from Black's bayard.

They can't fall forever.  He can focus on that.

"Black!  Get us out of here!"

He's not sure how or what he's asking, but he's also not sure how they got 'here' in the first place either.  He trusts his lion though.  He completely trusts his lion.

And Black responds to that trust.  Shiro can feel the energy gathering around him, can watch the purple glow of their matched quintessence rise, almost tangible its so powerful, motes of pure energy in the air around him, and, for just a moment

he glows.

He glows just as bright as the woman in his arms does.  Brighter.  Purple pure light, the entire cosmos, the night sky, the stars, every sun and moon and shining planet and black hole and traveling comet.  A super nova that explodes outward in a rush so powerful he hears the bone shaking roar of determination and challenge -

Shiro honestly isn't sure if its Black - or him.

And then the light's gone.  A quick fade inward and there are only stars and a ruined old battle cruiser floating outside the view screen and Shiro's left gasping for air, skin coated in sweat, lungs pumping to remember what it is to be only human again, to be surrounded by a human body. 

And there is warmth against him.  Weight in his lap and in his embrace.  He finally lets go of the bayard, has to force his fingers to unlock so that he can and he looks down at

Lisa.

Sleeping in his arms, eyelashes shut against almost translucent skin and

he remembers.  He remembers that's the way her skin always looks when she's been out in space and away from the sun for a mission.  Moon skin.  He swallows because she's too real.  For so long she's been a memory without memory inside of his mind, tucked in against his heart.  He almost feels as if he doesn't know what to do with her - now that she's real.  His mind hasn't even sorted through all of what he remembers - now - suddenly - about them.  He knows it will take time.

He knows, now, that she took his memories of her so that he wouldn't come after her....

She should have known better.

She inhales then.  Opens eyes that aren't gold. That are midnight dark brown instead under her now white hair.  Blinks up at him.  The word that struggles out of her unused throat, that whispers dry and dusty - and alive - is simply:

"Ro?"

He remembers.  He remembers her perfectly.

And, as he hugs her tightly to him and feels tears that might be hers and are certainly his, he knows. 

Now,

for the first time in far, far too long for both of them

the forming memories of the present can finally be stronger than the ghosts of the past.


End file.
